Gemma inspires our meeting

Tuesday Feb 16

 Our inspirational guest speaker at our meeting (via ZOOM) was Gemma Sisia - founder of the school of St Jude

Gemma Sisia

The School of St Jude is a charity-funded school located in the city of Arusha, in the northern Arusha Region of Tanzania. The school, located across three campuses, provides free primary and secondary education to the poorest and brightest children of the Arusha Region. It was founded by Australian Gemma Sisia in 2002, based on the belief that education is the best way to fight poverty.

Gemma statted the first class in 2002 with three students; today 1,400 students are borders at the school, plus approx. 400 living locally in a fifty Km radius attend daily. They are collected by 26 buses (10 coaches, 7 mini vans; the remainder 4WD that pick-up /drop-off from the unmade dirt roads).

There are 300 staff at the school in key areas of teaching, head office, Alumni and fund-raising. In earlier years the staff was largely international, but today all staff (excepting a couple of positions in fund-raising) are now 100% Tanzanian personnel, with the majority being ex-students.

Anna explaining her role at St Jude's

 We met Anna, an ex-student and university graduate, who now works in the accounts department.

 The annual US$6 million budget is 90% funded by Australian donors - often Rotary is involved; however, donations or sponsorship of a child or donations by Australian families is the major source of funds. No financial government assistance from Tanzania or Australia is received (although tax deduction of donations in Australia is, in effect, a subsidy by the ATO).

 

Tanzania has 16 thousand primary schools but only 500 high schools – only 3% of students finish high school. Moreover, the state education system in is vastly under funded with classes of more than 100 students (St Jude’s has 25 pupils per class), limited if no text books and teachers who are overwhelmed and not very motivated: resulting in huge absenteeism among state teachers. 

The school of St Jude is very popular offering a free high-quality education. A rigorous selection process runs from August to December each year; potential pupils line up outside the school on Saturdays to sit the entrance exam. This year 6,000 children applied in 3 regions for the 112 places available in Year 1 and it was a huge and often emotional process. To be accepted to the school the children need to be both bright and poor with extensive checks done on the children who pass the entrance tests to ensure they pass the poverty test!

New students are also taken at secondary school level to allow those from further outside Arusha, mainly part of the Masai tribe, to also get a good education. Only one student is accepted from each family to allow as many families as possible to have a well-educated child who can help their family. Children of ages 7- 10 years are in single sex classes (at separate schools) whilst high school is co-educational.

Once high school is finished, all students are required to perform a year of service. St Jude’s students teach/assist at 26 different secondary state schools as employees and gain practical experience in many aspects of teaching and administration prior to then gaining support at University in Tanzania. St Jude’s has a strong emphasis on STEM (Science, technology, engineering & mathematics) in addition to Arts giving great employment potential to the graduates. 300 students from St Jude’s have attended university in Tanzania (many students are in the top 10%) with a number have been conferred degrees in Medicine (23), Engineering, Finance, Education, IT and Wild Life studies.

Everyone who saw and heard Gemma was very moved with her dedication and drive in bringing this about and combating the enormous challenges.

Audience at Balgowlah RSL

 Club Guests - Always Welcome!

We had three guests last evening.

Narelle McNicol, came to us via the website

Martha Crummy, friend of Narelle

Rhonda Scotter, a Lifeline counselor and voucher recipient, who contacted us wanting to learn more about our club,

(l .to r.) Rhonda Scotter, Martha Crummy, Lindy Myers (President, Balgowlah Rotary), Narelle McNicol

RYPEN Summer 2021

Youth Director, Ian Grayburn reported to the meeting that he witnessed RYPEN (Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment) last weekend. It was held over consecutive weekends using ZOOM, not at Narrabeen Fitness camp due to Covid19 restrictions.

Ian reported that despite the proceedings being on-line, the aims of engendering leadership and teamwork were achieved by an impressive, professionally- run program that had taken nine months for the organisers and leaders to create,prepare and produce. Participants were in teams of 5 people and were kept both eager and active throughout the program.

Four Mackellar Girls Campus students were sponsored by Balgowlah Rotary and they will be joining us on our Youth night in a coming meeting to report their  impressions on the program.

Balgowlah Rotary Golf Day- Our major fundraiser

Rotary Balgowlah is hosting its 31st Charity Golf Day and Dinner on 26th March at Wakehurst Golf Club.

Can you please help us to spread the word about our special event?
We hope you can come and join in the fun and invite friends and family to come too.

The Golf Day is an Ambrose tournament for men and women golfers of any level, at Wakehurst Golf Club with fun extras, followed by dinner in the Clubhouse with raffles, live and silent auctions. 

All funds raised are for the projects we support which help groups in need both locally and Internationally, plus our Youth programs.

Bookings can be made online to Trybooking via our website using the following link:

 https://www.balgowlahrotary.com.au/media#GolfDay

Book early if you want to use carts to play golf as there is a limited number of carts.

Oecusse Update

Rotarian Judy Charnard has talked to our club on a number of occasions. (Last year we donated $500.00 to Oecusse). Judy sent this message and newsletter to supporting clubs:

Hi All,

 

I know things are tougher than usual over here with covid etc but in developing countries such as Timor Leste things are even worse. Timor Leste has  been relatively free from covid and the government has done a good job of containing the spread.

The major problem the villagers are facing is hunger!

Please read the attached Oecusse Update and do what you can to help these people ride out this bad patch of disease and hunger.

Thank you in anticipation of your help.

Judy Charnaud OAM

OzGREEN Program Manager

Oecusse, Timor leste

0407207787